India’s Big Challenge: How To Stop Public from Relieving in the Open
If the neighbouring Pakistan is struggling to get rid of its military dictatorship, a democratic India is battling to ensure that its teeming millions start using the loo and stop defecating in the open. You see the the developing countries have to battle on many fronts…each demanding immediate action!!!
The “loo” problem is so acute that New Delhi hosted World Toilet Summit recently which brought together experts from more than 40 countries to discuss ways of providing affordable sanitation for the world’s poorest people. The situation is aggravated as defecating in the open leads to pollution of land and water causing severe gastro-intestinal diseases.
India’s concerned minister revealed that the government would spend around £125m on rural sanitation projects this year, a increase of 43 per cent on last year. He said: “By 2012, India will be free of defecation in the open and will meet international commitments in this regard.” More here…
Since the 1970s, a leading NGO in India, Sulabh International, has developed simple composting toilets that turns waste into water, fertiliser for crops, and biogas that can be used to run generators or cook. This organisation has provided 6,500 public toilets, most recently in Kabul.
The World Health Organisation has estimated that around the globe up to 2.6 billion people – one third of the planet’s entire population – do not have access to proper toilet facilities. More than half of them live in China and India, with the latter accounting for around 700 million people. The UN’s target for providing proper facilities for all people is 2015.
But the problem is that it is quite expensive for most countries in the developing world to set up western-style toilets and sewage systems. Anita Jha, vice-president of Sulabh International (the organisers of the summit) explains, “We have several models of traditional Indian-style squat toilets. These range in cost from 700 to 3,000 rupees ($18 – $75) and also use very little water.”
9 Responses to “India’s Big Challenge: How To Stop Public from Relieving in the Open”
Looking on the bright side: If you relieve yourself in the open, you won’t get into trouble like Larry Craig did.
It’s the sort of thing those of us in the west never ever think about, like electricity or running water. It lends itself to a lot of toilet humor (ejem) but it’s an important subject, bad sanitation is a very important source of disease, and more so in a tropical country.
More than the toilets themselves, I would think the really expensive thing is disposing of the waste. Someone has to collect and process the waste somehow, and it’s probably much harder in a third world country that doesn’t have plumbing that automatically takes waste to processing plants.
Lynx – I witnessed public urination in Germany while traveling there. Many “los” on the rural Autobahn are just walls.
This brings to mind the water problems the Southeastern US is having because of the extreme drought.
Can you imagine if Atlanta DID run out of water?
Ew.
@ Jilly Dybka
I wonder how much water would be saved, if toilets would use only as much water for flushing as is really necessary.
I think, the developing world should not set up western-style toilets. At least not those that waste so much water.
Perhaps the good folks of Atlanta should use traditional Indian-style squat toilets….?
I’ve written a lot of crappy posts on TMV but I’ve never written about a Toilet Summit. Shouldn’t this have been held in Flushing, NY?
Actually, this is a very serious issue. I spent a total of just over two years living, studying and eventually writing from India (where I met Swaraaj) and sanitation is a big issue. The difference is that now that India has benefited from globalization, issues such as making a dent on sanitation concerns are seen as eventually attainable..or at least close to where a serious start can be made on them. When I was there as a student interning on the Hindustan Times in 1972 and as a reporter from Sept. 1973-May 1975 this kind of issue was considered something academics would sit around and discuss but the money was not there and reality looked a long way off. Today it can be seriously discussed. That’s because India today is indeed on the path that thoughfful and hopeful academics talked about in the early to mid 70s.
A few weeks ago I was sitting in a waiting room when I caught a radio news item that India hoped to make its manned moon landing in 2009. I nearly fell off my chair.
I had not realized that India still pursued the space program it started 40 years ago. And the moon no less. What the devil does the moon have to offer the earthly sovereign state of India other than a perma-breeze U.S. flag, abandoned space trash and a drop-dead view of Planet Earth?
Then I read about India’s sanitation challenges and the World Toilet Summit. That’s it! The moon as earth’s overflow latrine. I KNEW there had to be a sane, practical rationale beind India’s space aspirations.
Whew! Of course India would not choose to expend an obscene amount of its resources on an empty, self-aggrandizing emulation of the last century’s space race post-pissing.
[...] on one of the lists. Shouldn’t he have been at the Toilet Summit in India? (Be SURE to read the post on that by TMVer Swaraaj Chauhan from [...]
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